Since Google automates so much of the ad sales process and has such a large user
base, some people can make good money just by selling AdSense ads. Here are a
few tips for getting the most profit out of your AdSense ads:
• Good advertisements do not look like ads. Blend AdSense ads with
the site design by using similar fonts and colors.
• Usually the banner ad format is not good unless is looks exceptionally
similar to the site design. Different format types will have different
CTRs and earnings. The vertical 160×600 “wide skyscrapers” and ad
blocks work well for me.
• Some people place many ad units on each page. This may work, but
many times this hurts earnings since you are selling more ad inventory
to cheap ads, which may end up getting clicked instead of the more
expensive ads that would display if you ran fewer ad units.
• Default blue with underline is good at getting clicks. Increasing ad
clickthrough rate should be a consideration before doing any major
design or redesign.
• Some people place visual cues next to their AdSense ads, but you
cannot tell people to click on the ads.
• If you are running a somewhat spammy AdSense site that is just there
for AdSense revenue, you want to limit users’ options by not giving
them many other links to click on. Either do not use site navigation
above the fold or visually depreciate the navigation links.
• Google AdSense has channel tracking and URL tracking, which will
show you how various channels and sites perform. Additionally, there
are a variety of third party programs that sell for around $50 to $100
that provide additional details.
• Google offers AdSense optimization tips on their site at

https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page

=tips.html. Notice how placing ads where navigation typically goes
increases earnings.
• JenSense.com is a good blog about contextual advertising. Jen is also
branded as an AdSense expert. She sells consulting services to help
people optimize their accounts and is also a moderator at Search
Engine Watch forums.
• Your ad click-through rate is going to be highly dependent on your
audience profile. More sophisticated people tend to click fewer ads.
• Yahoo! is beta testing a publisher contextual ad program similar to
Google’s, but Yahoo! does not have as much ad network depth as
Google does. Also, Yahoo! tends to focus on expensive ads, whereas
Google focuses more on ad relevancy, and, thus, gets a higher
clickthrough rate.

When using AdSense, the CTR and earnings can be much higher if you make a
couple small changes. The key is to test different things to see what is most
effective for your site design and setup.
Some sites place the ads in such a way that it hurts their ability to gain links. If you
are actively trying to promote a site and build an audience, make sure the ads are
not so prominent that they end up causing people to question the purpose or
usefulness of your site. For example, it may make sense to show no ads on your
home page to make the site seem more legitimate.
Many blog posts are generally short, targeted, and quick to make. Many blog
networks are used as AdSense keyword nets. Reporting topical news can build a
large number of pages quickly. Weblogs, Inc. is one of the more well-known blog
networks that aggressively integrates AdSense ads.
Google also offers AdLinks, which is another ad format that has helped some
publishers. A new contextual ad program by the name of Chitika has been gaining
praise from a number of bloggers although some have been absolutely frustrated
by their ad auditing.

An Example of Aggressive Google AdSense Integration

Please note the the below integration is rather aggressive, moreso than you would
probably do if you were running a longterm business. Google may eventually look
at artificially high AdSense clickthrough rates and flag the associated websites for
review and/ or demotion.
At one point in time you could put images right next to ads to entice clicks, but
after too many people started abusing it Google changed their policy to disallow
that.

This screenshot is the upper left corner of an AdSense site. For the screenshot, I
changed the topic of the site to “Illinois Dental” because I didn’t want to point out
the vertical the site targeted.
Notice the following about the screenshot:
• Under the tab titled Illinois Dentists, in an area that looks like sub
navigation, there are Google AdLinks.
• Where left-hand navigation normally goes, there is a 160x 600 wide
skyscraper.
• The AdSense link color is default blue.
• The AdSense URL color is the same color as other page elements to
integrate it into the site design.
• The color flag in the upper left draws attention toward the upper left.
If the eye moves down or to the right from there, people find ads.

Approximately 3-5% of web browsers are not JavaScript-enabled for one reason or
another. I recommend minimizing the number of pages using JavaScript whenever
possible. In addition, you should place your JavaScript in its own external .js file
and link to it from within your pages. This can decrease page load time and
improve usability. You can link to the external .js file by placing the following code
in your page head.
<script language=”JavaScript” src=”filename.js”></script>
If your entire page is in JavaScript, some people will not see it; in addition, many
search engines will not index it properly. Make sure to use noscript tags to
define what was in the JavaScript to users with that feature disabled. Noscript tags
look like this and should be placed just after a script’s location:
<noscript>javascript description and related links</noscript>

Keep File Size Small

The back button is one of the most used buttons on web browsers. If your file
takes a long time to load, you may be kissing your user goodbye before she even
gets to see your full hello.

Specify Image Details

To allow quick loading, it is a good idea to specify image sizes on the page so the
text can load before the image is rendered.
<img src=”/images/blah.gif” alt=”Blah picture.”
title=”PiIf an image is simply part of the design or navigation, you can just use a blank alt
tag as the image does not contribute to the page theme. Also, stuffing 100 words
in the alt tag does not likely add much to your SEO efforts and could make your
pages seem spammy.
If you are unsure whether a page is using text or images, you can view the page
source or hit control A to highlight the text and images.
On linked images, many search algorithms treat the image alt text similarly to how
they treat link anchor text (which is described in more detail in the linking section
of this e-book). Most SEOs recommend using the alt tag, but do not mention the
title tag. Search algorithms try to use whatever they find useful; thus, if most
people are NOT stuffing the image titles full of junk because they don’t know
about this feature, some search engines may eventually want to look there for
good, non-spammy text.
I have yet to use it, but some people use dynamic text replacement to replace images
with their associated text when site visitors have images turned off. Learn how to
do this here: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dynatext/. As long as it is not overtly
manipulative, search engines should not penalize you for using dynamic text
replacementcture of Blah.” height=”300″ width=”200″>

Quality content is conceptually unique content that people would
link at. If you want people to pay attention to you it is important
content that is conceptually unique. The following article by Sugarrae
topic more in depth:

http://www.sugarrae.com/permalink/when-unique-content-is-not-unique/

Writing Ideas to Spread

Rather than being so focused on search that you try to match keywords, you can
also market certain ideas with the intent to spread. By writing a headline that is
juicy, intriguing, or controversial, you stand a much better idea of seeing that idea
spread. Search engines follow people. If you spread good ideas then search
engines will trust you.
Brian Clark’s CopyBlogger offers great headline tips in his post titled “Magnetic
Headlines” at http://www.copyblogger.com/magnetic-headlines/.

Multiple Customer Types

I need some people to want to buy my e-book. “Buy my stuff” is not an easy
message to spread though. I also need other people to link to my site. Just like I
need to sell my e-book to have a business model, I also need to give others a
reason why they would want to link to my site because that will market my book.

Working From Your Strengths

I am typically a bit goofy in the things I say or do. It is why I have created many
funny or fun-type websites. It is far easier to be myself than to pull off some sort
of act.
I am not the best copywriter, and I do not write the best sales letter pages. If you
read the 33 Days to Online Profits e-book that comes as a bonus, it will include lots of
content about copywriting. Many of the links are not worth buying from for most
people. Much of his information in his report about search engines is inadequate
or incorrect.
However, I still note this document because it shows some copywriting techniques
that may be helpful. You only need to be great at one thing to be extremely
successful on the web. Yanik Silver is good at selling people stuff with compelling
copywriting. I do not suggest that you buy most of the stuff he links to in 33 Days
to Online Profits, but I do recommend you glance at how he writes copy.

Write Content to Target the Ideal Prospect

When you write content, you do not want to create something that makes
everyone happy. You want to write to the ideal target customer because your
writing will have the greatest effect on the people you are trying to target.

If you write too broadly, or try to make too many people happy, then your ideal
prospects will not convert as well, as they may become disinterested or offended by
attempts to write to less-targeted prospects. The lower quality prospects are going
to convert poorly no matter what you do.
The reason many hyper-focused sales letters are still a mile long is because the
people who are most interested in the topic are more inclined to want to keep
reading.
I did SEO for a customer where we increased his monthly sales from $3,000 to
around $12,000. I then tuned his page copy for his ideal client. With the same
marketing spend and same rankings, we increased his sales from $12,000 to over
$40,000. Even better yet, he was making greater profit from fewer customers by
targeting the larger spenders.

Sales Letters

Some websites are exceptionally transparent in that you can tell they are all about
making as much money as possible. By reading through the sales letters of various
written-to-sell websites, you can see some of the tricks they use to sell.
A hard sell does not make sense for all people (and may offend some of your
customers), but I could probably increase my income by about 50% if my sales
letter was harder selling. Sometimes it is a bit hard to balance profitability and
being easy to link to.

Clarity is Key

Many organizations aim to manipulate language to make it lose its meaning. If you
are small, one of the biggest advantages you have over competitors is that you can
put yourself into your brand and ensure that your writing is clear and easy to
understand. Since you have fewer stakeholders, it is easier for your writing to more
clearly represent your thoughts.

Lots of people will tell you to create lots of quality content without ever giving a
legitimate definition of what quality content is. The web is a big social network,
and the trick is to get your messages to spread further and faster than your
competitors. Usually, creating more pages does not do this as well as creating a
better idea.
The Web was designed to save people time or give away useful information. The
closer you can align a portion of your business model or website with those
concepts, the better chance you have at achieving extreme success.
While many SEOs hold back their secrets so they can profit from them, I give this
e-book free to charities and post most of what I learn to my blog. I not only help
people, but my syndicated network grows. I have been found by prospective
customers from word-of-mouth in forums I have never heard of. One day I got a
thank you e-mail from a person from a religious forum and about ten minutes later
got a thank you from a person from a pornography forum.